A Poem by Natalie Diaz
Native Americans make up less than
one percent of the population of America.
0.8 percent of 100 percent.
O, mine efficient country.
I do not remember the days before America –
I do not remember the days when we were all here.
Police kill Native Americans more
than any other race. Race is a funny word.
Race implies someone will win,
implies I have as a good a chance of winning as –
We all know who wins a race that isn’t a race.
Native Americans make up 1.9 percent of all
police killings, higher than any race,
and we exist as 0.8 percent of all Americans.
Sometimes race means run.
I am not good at math – can you blame me?
I’ve had an American education.
We are Americans, and we are less than 1 percent
of Americans. We do a better job of dying
by police than we do existing.
When we are dying, who should we call?
The police? Or our senator?
Please, someone, call my mother.
In Arithmetic and in America,
Divisibility has rules –
Divide without remainder.
At the National Museum of the American Indian
68 percent of the collection is from the U.S.
I am doing my best to not become a museum
of myself. I am doing my best to breathe in and out.
I am begging: Let me lonely but invisible.
In an American city of one hundred people,
I am Native American – less than one, less than
whole – I am less than myself. Only a fraction
of a body, let’s say, I am only a hand –
And when I slip it beneath the shirt of my lover,
I disappear completely.